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This man was trapped upside down in a car for a day

By The Associated Press

Posted:
08/06/2013 05:59:13 PM MDT

Updated:
08/06/2013 05:59:24 PM MDT

From his hospital bed in Missoula, Mont., on Aug. 5, 2013, Shaun Lee describes how he hung upside down pinned in the rental car he rolled on West Side Ninemile Road for more than 30 hours before he was discovered by a Forest Service worker who summoned rescuers.
(Kurt Wilson, Missoulian/AP/)

MISSOULA, Mont. (AP) — A South Carolina man was trapped in a rental car with a broken neck and other injuries for more than a day after the vehicle went off a forest road and rolled down an embankment in western Montana.

Shaun Lee of Moncks Corner, S.C., said he was upside down, pinned by the steering wheel, as he waited for help and prayed in the crashed car. He told his story to the media Monday from a Missoula hospital, where he was recovering.

Lee, 30, said he had traveled from South Carolina to North Dakota to look for work in the oil fields, then decided to continue on to Montana to visit an aunt in Missoula.

He said he was looking for a motel west of Missoula when he took a wrong exit and a few wrong turns and found himself coming down a slope on a wet dirt road at 12:15 a.m. Aug. 1.

Other rescuers responded and cut Lee out of the vehicle. Taylor Blakely, a member of Frenchtown Rural Fire, said responders placed Lee on a backboard and carried him up the embankment. He was then taken to the hospital.

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